“She told me she was alone. She told me not to come in today, said she wanted to be alone if that woman called again. I have to assume, if Mrs. Glendenning tells me she’s alone in the house, that she really is.”
“And where is this, Mrs. Garrity?” Sally asks.
“Where is what, Agent Ballew?”
“Special Agent Ballew,” Sally corrects. “Where is this house where Mrs. Glendenning is sitting alone waiting for a call from a black kidnapper?”
When the telephone rings, they all turn to look at the clock.
It is 11:40 A.M.
Sloate puts on the earphones.
“I think I’m ready now,” Marcia says.
“Go ahead,” Sloate says, and indicates that Alice is to pick up the phone.
She lifts the receiver.
“Hello?” she says.
“Alice?”
“Who’s this?”
“Rafe.”
“Rafe?”
“Your brother-in-law. Want to give lunch to a poor wandering soul?”
“Where… where are you, Rafe?”
“My rig’s right outside a 7-Eleven on… where is this place, mister?” he shouts. “Where? I’m up here in Bradenton. How far is that from you?”
“Rafe, I don’t think it would be a good idea…”
“I’ll get directions,” he says. “See you.”
There is a click on the line.
“I thought he was supposed to be in Mobile by now,” Sloate says.
“Apparently not.”
“Who was it?” Marcia says.
“Rafe,” Sloate says. “The jailbird brother-in-law. He’s on his way over.”
“We don’t need him here,” Marcia says.
“I don’t need anyone here,” Alice says.
The grandfather clock reads 11:45 A.M.
“Hello?”
In that single word, Christine knows intuitively that someone is in that house with Alice Glendenning. She simply senses it. The certain knowledge that the woman is not alone.
“Is someone there with you?” she asks at once.
“No, I’m alone,” Alice says.
“You didn’t call the police, did you?”
“No.”
“Because you know that’s the end of your kids, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Stay right there by the phone,” Christine says, and hangs up, and goes back to the blue Impala she’s parked at the curb alongside the phone booth. She begins driving at once, searching for the next pay phone along the Trail. She is not positive about how telephone traces work, but she thinks maybe they can close in on specific locations if not specific phone numbers. She called on a cell phone last night, from where the two of them are holding the kids, but they decided together that it would be safer if she called from pay phones this morning.
She pulls off the road as soon as she spots one in a strip mall. She gets out of the Impala again, walks over to the plastic phone shell, and dials Alice’s number.
She looks at her watch.
12:10 P.M.
She hears the phone ringing on the other end, once, twice…
“Hello?”
“Have you got the money?” she asks.
“Not yet,” Alice says.
“What’s taking you so long?”
“There are securities to sell. It isn’t easy to raise that much cash overnight.”
“When will you have it?” Christine asks.
There is a silence on the line.
Someone coaching her for sure. Hand signals, or scribbled notes, whatever. She is not alone in that house.
“I’m still working on it.”
“Work on it faster,” Christine says, and hangs up. She looks at her watch again. The call took fifteen seconds, going on sixteen. She does not think they can effect a trace in that short a time. She goes back to the car, and drives along the Trail until she spots another pay phone. It is 12:17 when she calls the house again.
“Hello?”
“Get the money by this afternoon at three,” Christine says. “We’ll call then with instructions.”
“Wait!”
“What? Fast!”
“How do I know they’re still alive? Send me a Polaroid picture of the two of them holding today’s Tribune.”
“What?”
“Send it Fed Ex.”
“You’re dreaming,” Christine says.
The sweep hand on her watch has ticked off twenty seconds.
“I’ll call you at three,” she says.
“Are my children all right? Let me speak to Ashley, ple—”
Christine hangs up.
“Twenty-five seconds this time,” Marcia says.
Sloate is already on the new phone link to the Public Safety Building downtown. Alice listens as he tells his commanding officer that they’ve had no luck with a trace. He tells him the woman is demanding the money by three this afternoon. The big grandfather clock in the hallway now reads twenty minutes to one.
“So what do we do?” he asks. “We’ve got till three o’clock.”
“Let me think on it,” Steele says, and hangs up.
Alice is pacing the room. She whirls on Marcia, where she is sitting behind her equipment. “Why haven’t you been able to trace the calls yet?” she asks.
“She’s never on the line long enough,” Marcia says.
“We can put men on the moon, but you can’t trace a damn call coming from around the corner!”
“I wish it was just around the corner. But we don’t know where she’s—”
“I don’t want you here!” Alice shouts. “I want you all out of here! I’ll handle this alone from now on. Just get out! None of you knows what the hell you’re doing, you’re going to get my children killed!”
“Mrs. Glendenning…”
“No! Just get out of here. Take all your stuff and leave. Now! Please. Get out. Please. I’m sorry. Get out.”
“We’re staying,” Sloate says.
She is ready to punch him.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Glendenning,” he says, “but we’re staying.”
And then, infuriating her because it reminds her again of her father when he used to take a razor strop to her behind, “It’s for your own good.”
4
When Rafe arrives at a quarter past one that afternoon, Alice has no choice but to tell him what’s going on. He looks as if he doesn’t believe her. Doesn’t believe these are detectives here. Doesn’t believe her kids are missing, either. Thinks this is all some kind of afternoon pantomime staged for his benefit. Stands there like a big man who needs a shave and a drink both, which he tells Alice he really does need if all she’s telling him is true. She pours him some twelve-year-old scotch from a bottle Lane Realty gave her at Christmastime. The other brokers all got bonuses, but she hadn’t sold a house yet. Still hasn’t, for that matter.
“What happened to your foot?” Rafe asks, noticing at last.
“I got hit by a car.”
“Did you report it?” he says.
“Not yet,” she says.
My kids have been kidnapped, she thinks, and everybody wants to know if I reported a goddamn traffic accident.
She takes him into the kitchen, and searches in the fridge for something she can give him to eat.
“You tell Carol about this?” he asks.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“My kids are in danger.”
“She’s your sister.”
“This okay?” she asks, and offers him a loaf of sliced rye, a wedge of cheese, and a large hunk of Genoa salami.
“You got mustard?” he asks.
“Sure.”
“You should call her,” he says.